Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur, March 2016

Attention conservation notice: I have no taste.

Guido W. Imbens and Donald B. Rubin, Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences: An Introduction

While I found less to disagree with about the over-all approach than I anticipated, I am genuinely surprised (not "shocked, shocked!" surprised) to so much sloppiness in the mere data analysis. I can't recommend this book to anyone who isn't already well-trained in applied statistics. To say any more here would preempt my review for JASA, so I'll just link to that when it's out.

— I will however mention one grumble, which didn't fit in the review. From p. 174:

The possible advantage of the frequentist approach [over the Bayesian] is that it avoids the need to specify the prior distribution $ p(\theta) $ for the parameters governing the joint distribution of the two potential outcomes. However, this does not come without cost. Nearly always one has to rely on large sample approximations to justify the derived frequentist confidence intervals. But in large samples, by the Bernstein-Von Mises Theorem (e.g., Van Der Vaart, 1998), the practical implications of the choice of prior distribution is limited, and the alleged benefits of the frequentist approach vanish.

I don't see how to unpack everything objectionable in these view sentences without rehearsing the whole of this post, and adding "the bootstrap is a thing, you know".

Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Love Commandos

Mind candy: the latest in the mystery series, though enjoyable independently; this time, we find Vish Puri unwillingly drawn into the nexus of caste and politics in rural Uttar Pradesh.

Jack Campbell, The Dragons of Dorcastle, The Hidden Masters of Marandur, The Assassins of Altis

Mind candy science fantasy. There are some thematic similarities to Rosemary Kirstein's (much superior) Steerswomen books. Those themes are, as it were, here transcribed into the key of Teen's Own Adventures (Campbell gets points for having the Heroic Engineer with a Destiny be a young woman), with less compelling world-building than Kirstein. Still, I zoomed through these and await the sequels.

ROT-13'd for spoilers: Bar jnl va juvpu Xvefgrva'f obbxf ner fhcrevbe vf gung ure cebgntbavfgf unir gb npghnyyl svther bhg gur uvqqra gehguf bs gurve jbeyq, jurernf Pnzcoryy gnxrf gur ynml snagnfl-jevgre jnl bhg bs univat gurer or uvqqra fntrf jub pna whfg gryy gur urebrf rirelguvat. Nyfb, V nz abg fher V unir rire frra "orpnhfr bs dhnaghz!" hfrq fb funzryrffyl ol nal jevgre jub jnfa'g n zrqvpny dhnpx.

Paul McAuley, Into Everywhere

Further into the future of his (excellent) Something Coming Through, in which finding that we are only the latest in a galaxy full of the remains of much older, much more powerful, and much weirder alien civilizations is not very good for humanity. For instance, the scientific method seems to atrophy as we move up the time-line, in much the way Chomsky fears will result from cheap computing [*]. There is a reason for this.

ROT-13'd for spoilers: Gur eriryngvba ng gur raq, gung gur gehr nvz bs nyy guvf nyvra zrqqyvat vf abg gb qb fbzrguvat gb uhznavgl ohg gb trg hf gb cebqhpr NVf, orpnhfr gur shgher bs nal vagryyvtrag yvarntr vf hygvzngryl znpuvarf, vf bs pbhefr fgenvtug bhg bs Pynexr'f 2001. Guvf yrnqf zr gb jbaqre jurgure gurfr abiry'f nera'g ZpNhyrl va qvnybthr jvgu Pynexr, rfcrpvnyyl jvgu 2001 rg frd. naq gur Guveq Ynj, va zhpu gur jnl gung, fnl, Pbasyhrapr jnf ZpNhyrl va qvnybthr jvgu Jbysr naq gur Obbx bs gur Arj Fha.

*: From Chapter 59, "Synchronicity":

They didn't appear to use any kind of analytical reasoning to confirm their conjectures, employing instead a crude form of experimental Darwinism, seeding a matrix with algorithms modelling variations of their initial assumptions and letti